Using Didi in China
 

I have to admit I have never used Didi in China before, but I've been told that apparently I can use a foreign credit card (Visa, MC, AMEX?) in the app. So is it as simple to use as Uber? I'm assuming I can download the app while I'm still in the US, register, add my credit card, and start using it in China? Is it simple and safe to use? Does it avoid the problems with taxis? I can speak Mandarin so I'm not worried about the language barrier. Is it much cheaper than taxi?

Trying to flag a taxi on the road has become very difficult. Even taxis are booked via apps. I find that in many place, using Didi is the only way to get around.

If you use the AliPay Tourpass (which should be available to you as a foreigner), you can pay for Didi with it, which is quite convenient. I tried this in Shanghai a few days ago, and it worked well.

This is now insanely hard! I use the metro as much as possible, but it's not an option after it closes:p

Totally agree with ya!

My taxi from the bar to home on January 1 set me back y100, but I sucked it up.

Didi is as easy to use as Uber, afterall you know who they spy to make sure they get all the good features.

I've had it linked to my US CC for a longtime, no issues. Like you I can speak, but can't read, so I love the English Didi options. As to Didi you can book taxi with them, or private cars ( more Uber like ), generally find minimum difference with the private car options and the better thing with them the car/driver are in general better than the taxi drivers, but less interesting people to talk to IMHO

For those in the UK who are finding that the app isn't available, I just set up a second US appleid with a fake address. Downloaded the app and linked a UK credit card. It appears to be working, I shall know definitely in a few weeks.

I'm probably in the minority with this opinion but generally I prefer the taxi drivers to DiDi drivers. I get that taxi drivers can be evil at times, but for my general usage of getting to/from the office, here in SZ, I'd rather a taxi driver than the Didi driver. These are short trips, the fare is usually 13-16¥. Even when taking longer trips, I see very little difference between the Didi and taxi fares.

I find that many of the Didi drivers seem inexperienced and are timid drivers. They follow the GPS blindly, probably need to follow GPS by Didi rules, and as a result seem to have limited knowledge of alternate routes in case there's some need to be creative. Maybe it's because I'm an old impatient fart but I routinely find myself backseat driving the Didi drivers. With the taxi drivers, I never do this and usually trust them to get my to my destination the quickest. Mostly they know the roads very well and understand traffic patterns, construction detours,etc.

I do use Didi a lot because I can't speak Chinese and the English version of the Didi app works great. I can speak enough to tell the taxi drivers how to get to my office. So in the morning it's a taxi to work and if I go back to my girlfriend's apartment, I need to use Didi since I can't relate the location properly to the taxi drivers.

I guess I'm a little old school. I get the benefit of using Didi but in practice I feel the taxi drivers are consistently better, at least my experience in SZ.

My DiDi thoughts:

Long distances, such as to the airport, I generally do Premium, the usual home to work or restaurant run I take Didi Express or Select. Between 7.00 AM and 9.00 AM and 5.00PM and 10.00 PM and on Fridays and Saturdays in the late night it becomes harder to get a Didi. The surcharge system does not help much. Uber was much more aggressive in charging higher surcharges, and the chance to get a car in those situations was much better.

I am also very relentless complaining about Premium drivers to the customer service, if there was something I don't like, e.g. charging extra fees without informing me or providing fapiao for it or almost falling asleep and slowly moving into the adjacent lane. I got real furious once while I was travelling with my kids to the airport. Funny enough, sleepy drivers happened to me mostly in the morning like 7.00 or 9.00 AM.

But in general I think DiDi Preimum drivers drive quite careful. For Premium you also get a bottle of water. Especially arriving at an airport, rushing to the pick up spot, it is a nice little add-on.

For taxi drivers, I had even more experiences with sleepy drivers. But complaining there to the hotlines is useless.

Normally I find Didi drivers are driving more careful, less heart attack likelihood compared to taxi drivers. And that also goes for Didi Express or Select drivers - after all it is their own car. On the other side, I agree with synthkeys that they are less familiar with the roads, although in a city like Shanghai taxi drivers also do not know every corner and shortcut. In Guangzhou they usually knew the streets better.

In some cities I always use Didi, because I am just fed up with the taxi drivers there. Especially in Tianjin I had more than half of my times the experience, that they tell me some BS about the meter is broken, and they have to charge higher, there is a airport charge of 50 CNY without fapiao, or drive a really long extra route in the evening, saying there is less traffic - but then had felt like hundreds of red lights with each 2-3 minutes of waiting. Beijing experience is similar, although slightly different reasons. Some of the best experiences with Didi drivers I often have in very small cities. They are usually so overwhelmed that they can drive around a foreigner in their car in their town. Bit of Chinese helps wonders ...

Helping with luggage, only Premium drivers consistently help on their own. All other you need to ask to help in 90% of the cases. Some taxi drivers help when we are with kids, but I believe more because they are worried we damage the cars' interior when lifting in and out the buggy. Only exceptions are airports when there is supervising staff. I believe the drivers would get in trouble there, if they don't help.

As I have a local bank card, Didi is linked to my Alipay, so I cannot add anything in regards to foreign credit cards.

There are also other services besides Didi in China, which you can also use via Alipay app - but with English service I only know Didi so far.

I think the majority of Didi drivers rent their car. Only a very small number of drivers own their car outright.

I know a few people in China who work as Didi drivers and they all do it with their car. It is because that they own a car that they stated this sort of work in the first place.

For all practical purposes these rental drivers may treat it as their "own" car. These are long-term rental contracts lasting at least a year.

This is especially the case in Beijing (and perhaps Shanghai) where non-local drivers can't even legally get a Beijing car registration, which is required for driving through Didi. So rental is the only option for anybody except Beijing locals (and very few Beijing locals drive Didi or taxis). Here is an article in Chinese explaining the mechanics behind this:

https://www.weiyangx.com/330997.html

1. Beijing is challenging because of the lottery system
2. Registering cars in Shanghai costs a lot (i.e. ~60x) more, but my understanding is that anyone, including foreigners, can do the drill

For foreigners who have a valid residency permit things are easy because you'd already have income tax receipts and such. However, for non-local Chinese nationals who are trying to work as a taxi driver, I doubt they'd have the requisite income tax receipts to prove that they're working legally in Shanghai. IOW they simply can't get a Shanghai registration even if they have the money. There's also the issue that simply having enough money is no longer sufficient to win the Shanghai registration auction since there is now a price cap. It's essentially a lottery just like Beijing but you stil have to pay 100K for it.

Quite late, but yes, Didi works with foreign credit cards. Although my Didi account is tied to my ICBC US UnionPay card, I have registered non-UnionPay cards with it before. The downside though is that you can only register one credit card at a time. I've only used Didi in Shanghai and Guangzhou, but in both instances I found my drivers to be generally pleasant and capable of coping with my halting command of Chinese.

Another frustration with Didi is that while you used to be able to charge driver tips to your foreign credit card, this is no longer the case, and you'll need to tip them using Alipay, WeChat Pay or some other local system. I usually use Didi on long trips (like hotel to PVG), so I don't tip, but on shorter trips if this continues to be the case I'm going to start handing a cash tip to my driver to go around this, given my own troubles with trying to set up an Alipay or WeChat Pay account.

Is tipping mandatory? I almost always don't tip in China. Do you know what Didi code as on a credit card?

I almost never tip myself, but with Didi you can pretip to make yourself more desirable. This comes in handy when the weather is bad and/or on weekend nights. One thing I have noticed about foreign cards is that the taxi options disappear from my menu when I switch to foreign cards. This isn't a huge deal because the lower priced Didi options are about the same price, but it obviously does result in a smaller pool.

You actually had trouble getting someone to pick you up with Didi when there was bad weather or on the weekend in Shanghai?

What do you mean by the "taxi options"? I don't have any Chinese payment methods and I think I was counting on some dp in the other thread as to whether I would try to open one up in SZ when I was in HK before the COVID-19 became a pandemic. If Didi accept my Chase cards (I wonder if Didi code as ridesharing with my Hyatt card?), that would solve one problem when transit isn't available (like the time I missed the last subway back to the Courtyard near PVG; fortunately I was able to use Apple Maps and followed the instructions back by bus!)

1. It's not hard getting cars during bad weather if you book an expensive class or significantly up your offer
2. Almost all taxi drivers use Didi (and similar) to the extent that legacy booking channels are almost completely obsolete

Tipping isn't mandatory (e.g. I never tip at restaurants), but when it comes to taxis I want to make the trip worthwhile for the driver. If LAX to my office is $40 USD and my trip from the Fairfield on Gonghexin Road to PVG is about ¥200, of course I'd want to give more.

You have the option to pre-tip and to tip at the end of the journey. The latter for sure you need a Chinese payment method; the former, I believe you also need one but it may be possible to pass tips using foreign cards. I need to check this again the next time I'm back (whenever that will be).

I've never tried booking taxis with Didi, but I see the option in the app. Is this a more recent development?

ICBC doesn't code it as anything, but perhaps I should try using a different card the next time I'm back in China to see what it codes as. I think it will code as ridesharing though, similar to Uber.

Taxis are fairly priced in Shanghai, there is no need to tip and it certainly isn’t expected by the drivers. They are more than happy to get that Zhabei to Pudong run for 200!

I'm not sure how recent it is, but it is a nice feature to have at your disposal:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5574082613.png

Oh no, I mean I know I can book taxis with Didi, but how recently was it that I can't pay for one with a foreign credit card? :p

As I mentioned in post 19, the taxi option disappears when I switch to a foreign card, so I don't think it's possible.

No they almost certainly are not fairly priced. The per-km rate hasn't gone up in over ten years.

And yet it's never been easier to get a taxi to or from the airport (including didi). If it's so unfair why are there so many people looking for the gig?

Because it's about the only ride that pays more than a pittance? Seriously how much has the cost of living gone up in Shanghai over the last ten years? The cost of housing in Shanghai is similar to most Western cities and the taxi fare is nowhere near the Western average.

The more relevant metric is how much have wages increased over the last 10 years, though there is obviously a strong correlation. But, I approach things from the wage perspective because it's important for people who make 6k per month to be able to afford taxis. Based on my own company's salary data (small sample size, and our industry is not necessarily representative of the big picture), 5k per month 10 years ago was the rough equivalent of 6k per month now. As such, I suppose a ~20% (e.g. flag drop increases from 14 to 17) bump in fares might make sense. Didi rates would obviously follow suit.

That having been said, I'm uncomfortable with the idea tipping just because you feel drivers deserve more money. This just sets expectations, and unevens the playing field. I have a little more sympathy for pre-tipping. While this practice still screws over poor people, if they venture outside on a rainy Friday night, they know what they know what they're getting themselves into. Furthermore, tippers jumping the queue aside, it's much better to book a didi and wait (in comfort) for an hour v standing on the side of the street for 30 minutes.

Call me cheap, but I rarely tip in Asia. I don't care what anyone thinks. That's one thing I like about China over the US.

My father uses it. It is rather convenient.

Mostly, subways are more convenient in big cities.

Only when the routes work for you. Transfers are often inconveniently located and some of the stations are enormous. For example, I live 100 meters away from 徐家汇 exit 16, but line 1 is a full km away.

I got the Alipay app to work, did pay food with it today. In the Alipay app, they offer "DIDI travel".

Because I got an error message when trying to add Alipay as a payment method in the DIDI app, I thought it might not matter if I can book DIDI directly from the Alipay app?

Is it any difference, same prices, same cars?

Yes, Didi is accessible from Alipay. Prices should be the same (except you may not be able to get / use coupons, which for a tourist is too much of a pain anyhow).

The app has a bit more functionality than the alipay MP, but the latter suits most of my needs.